Thursday, June 30, 2011

Good Friends and Good Horses

There is not much better than good horses and good friends.  Today, I had both.  Three friends joined me for riding on the ranch.  Of the four horses on the trail, two had cattle experience and two had not.  We don't bother the cattle, but it's good for the horses to see them and smell them.  I rode Classy out on the trail.  He was so good.  Yesterday, we rode with the bareback pad around the ranch, so Classy was pretty calm and easy going today.  He's a good ride, when you use him the day prior.

At one point, I made everyone cross a wet field.  I had thought that it was going to be dry and instead we found mud and muck.  One of the horses wasn't pleased with this.  Classy was fine, and I was surprised.  Later on, I did a little water work with Classy and Alexa and Fox.  Classy was hesitant but eventually went for it.  I had him stand in the water, he played a little bit in it.  It was fun.

Playing in the water reminds me of the summers with my friend, Mary.  We found a pond on a back road that wasn't developed.  The pond crossed the gravel road, so we would gallop our ponies bareback through the pond.  It was soooooo much fun!  Good memories.  I miss those days of riding bareback and dreaming on horseback.

Later on, I played with Freckles a bit.  She was not wanting to let me catch her.  She kept walking off.  So, I persisted and eventually we met up.  I like her a lot.  She gives up easily.  I haltered her and then just remained in the pasture working on weaving between trees and walking over poles.  Even had her backing between the poles.  She is just a good, good girl and seems to get things fairly quickly without a fight.  I've been pondering sending her to a trainer, but then I come back to the fact that I don't always agree with what people do with training horses and maybe I should just suck it up and do it.  Truthfully, I've done it before.  Several times.  I still have Classy, after 19 years and he's doing well.  He had a good mind to start out with and I think Freckles is the same.  She's a sweetheart, my little Freckle Face.

3 comments:

Linda said...

You could easily train her. She sounds wonderful.

For me the biggest issue is time. I want to ride Cowboy as long as I can before his arthritis gets too bad. So, it's hard to fit in the training time and put the miles on another horse. If you figure out the answer to this, let me know!

Good luck with here, and the ride at your place looks like a blast. I need to come out there, but I don't like trailering on the freeway. :/

Unknown said...

Linda, you could get here via Hwy 2 or go through Medical Lake, no freeway needed. ;-)

Linda said...

How would I go through Medical Lake? Do you go right through down town and out that way?